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Emotional Eating Moderates the Relationship of Night Eating with Binge Eating and Body Mass
Author(s) -
Meule Adrian,
Allison Kelly C.,
Platte Petra
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
european eating disorders review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.511
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1099-0968
pISSN - 1072-4133
DOI - 10.1002/erv.2272
Subject(s) - emotional eating , binge eating , eating disorders , psychology , evening , mood , body mass index , snacking , morning , overeating , moderation , bulimia nervosa , anorexia , clinical psychology , binge eating disorder , psychiatry , obesity , medicine , eating behavior , social psychology , physics , astronomy
Night eating syndrome is marked by substantial evening or nocturnal food intake, insomnia, morning anorexia, and depressed mood. Night eating severity has been positively associated with body mass index (BMI), binge eating frequency, and emotional eating tendencies. We conducted an online questionnaire study among students ( N = 729) and explored possible interactive effects between those variables. Night eating severity, binge eating frequency, BMI and emotional eating were all positively correlated with each other. Regression analyses showed that night eating severity was particularly related to more frequent binge episodes and higher BMI at high levels of emotional eating but unrelated to those variables at low levels of emotional eating. Thus, eating as a means of emotion regulation appears to be an important moderator of the relationship between night eating and both binge eating and BMI. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.